I
am this close (imagine my thumb and index finger forming a small, backwards C) to changing my name to Lightnin’ Roy. I love this album and I wish I could say that about every album but I don’t and in a way I’m glad I don’t because then when I do it means I really did. Mike Keneally combines the demented genius of Frank Zappa (his former employer) with the throw-a-lot-of-sticky-things-at-the-wall approach of They Might Be Giants. The result is 25 demented, sticky things, many of which will stay lodged in your head for weeks or months. Hat just high-pressure hosed me with its energy: warped pop (think XTC or Adrian Belew), pyrotechnic guitar pieces fashioned after Zappa and absurd interludes (“Eno And The Actor,” “The Exciting New Toothpaste From Mars”). Remember how you felt the first time you heard “Adidas In Heat?” Multiply that by twenty-five and you’ll know what’s hiding in hat. I trudge through a lot of junky CDs in a year waiting, waiting to discover something of hat’s magnitude. It has all the earmarks of a cult classic: Ren & Stimpian sales pitches, dream interpretations and cows taking over the world in three parts. Exowax recently corrected a great injustice by releasing hat. in a double-disc remaster with loads of goodies: live video from a 1993 concert and a recent reunion with Toss Panos (drums) and Doug Lunn (bass), alternate takes, interview clips and video from the original sessions. For anyone with a little Mad Hatter in them, what a wonderland of endearing dementia awaits you in hat.